QUIZ: Which team began this season with the most career 100- game winners on its roster (answer below)? …

Roger Cedeno has been a revelation and a valuable resource for the Mets. But the Mets actually had a Todd Hundley trade in place last November in which they did not get Cedeno and did not include the Dodgers. The Mets worked a trade with the Orioles in which they would moved Hundley for Armando Benitez, third-base prospect Ryan Minor and one of two pitchers, Rocky Coppinger or Chris Fussell. But, after initially agreeing, Baltimore backed out.

The Mets turned to the Dodgers, knowing their interest in Hundley. But to round out any deal Los Angeles was offering reliever Antonio Osuna or outfielder Todd Hollandsworth, and the Mets had unfavorable medical reports on both. So the Mets got creative and got both the Dodgers and Orioles involved to make a three-team deal in which they obtained both Benitez and Cedeno.

The player the Orioles received in that transaction, catcher Charles Johnson, has turned into one of the most disappointing in the game. Two seasons ago, when he backstopped a World Series champion in Florida, Johnson seemed on the way to stardom. But both his always mediocre offense and superb defense have regressed. Through 54 at-bats this season, the 27-year-old Johnson was hitting just .222 with one homer and one RBI. His swing remains too long. Defensively, he no longer draws comparisons favorably to Texas’ Ivan Rodriguez. The word you hear most often to describe Johnson’s game is ”soft.” And he was supposed to be a breath of youth for the aging Orioles.

Is it any wonder then that word around baseball is that neither Orioles GM Frank Wren nor manager Ray Miller will make it out of May with their Oriole jobs. Baseball officials apparently had asked Baltimore owner Peter Angelos not to overshadow the May 3 Oriole-Cuba exhibition game by dismissing a top baseball official. Now there is no such cover for the most vulnerable figures in Baltimore’s miserable season.

The Commissioner’s Office already is trying to conceive of more palatable ways to play future exhibitions against Cuba than this year’s poorly imagined home-and-home in which the Orioles were forced to play both on the brink of the season and during the season.

Here is an idea that would bring great world-wide attention for baseball: Have a mid-season, week-long all-star festival. The Americans should not only invite Cuba, but Japan, and have major-league personnel split into teams from the U.S. and a combined Latin America (excluding Cuba). Then play a semifinal and final. Also you could do the same for the minor-league levels. And have world-wide homer-hitting contests and skills competition. The arguments about who should comprise the teams would spark interest.

This would showcase the best in the sport around the globe. And because it is done in all-star format, players will be in peak mid-season form, but pitchers will not be asked to go any more than a few innings so as not to overtax them for the continuing regular major-league season. …

Indians GM John Hart denied it, but word is Cleveland is shopping David Justice, one of the few Indians not hitting in their powerful lineup. ”David is a leader and a big bat for us,” Hart said. ”It would have to be something really big to move him.” Justice has three years at $21 million left beyond this season, is 33 and is struggling to stay above .200 with little power, making it hard to move him.

Wouldn’t Cleveland like to have the less expensive, more lethal lefty bats of Jeromy Burnitz (traded in 1996 for Kevin Seitzer) or Brian Giles (traded last offseason for Ricardo Rincon) instead of Justice? Burnitz and Giles are among the NL leaders in homers.